The Meat Eating Easter Feast that is Fasika
on My VSO Ethiopian Adventures (Ethiopia), 23/May/2011 09:04, 34 days ago
Ethiopian Christians undertake an 8 week fast leading up to Easter, or Fasika, which this year commenced on Monday 2nd March. Orthodox Easter, like Christmas can vary significantly from our dates, but this year they fell together. I admit that as I sit here I can not remember how our Easter is calculated, something about the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox?? I think Ethiopians also use the lunar calendar, but something must be different.Now, clearly it is not a case of not eating for 8 weeks, but for most Ethiopians not being able to eat meat is pretty much the same as not eating. The fast includes diary products, so they are vegen for this period. This is a trying time for them, but it certainly gives some respite for the animal population!The first thing we noticed is that all the butcheries are shut and boarded up from 2nd March. These are everywhere and usually attached to a bar! Yes indeed, as you drink your beer, you can look straight into a kiosk on the same premises where great carcasses are hanging and raw meat is being sold. By the way, bars are frequently called groceries, which amuses us enormously.Secondly, up the road are a series of open cattle pens where animals, usually ox and camels are bought and sold for subsequent slaughter. This remained stoically empty and unused for this period of time. Menus in restaurants are all adapted to provide a fuller range of vegetarian options and the remains of animal carcasses which here are simply thrown out into the sidestreets for the dogs etc to eat are mercifully missing. Frankly the whole place becomes a lot more pleasant, as normally the raw activities associated with animals being killed and eaten are an every day reality here.However as the week before Easter approached one started to see living meat around once more with, particularly around here, herds of large cows and goats being driven around once again and solitary individuals tied up in compounds. The cattle market up the road started to swell with business again and suddenly meat, still on a hoof was everywhere, waiting…..The ritual of Easter itself starts on Thursday night before Good Friday when the clergy and a few serious churchgoers commit themselves to church till the end of Friday and fast completely. Most people fast completely for the whole of Friday. You may think that just sitting in a quiet, cool place without distraction may be the best option if you are not eating or drinking. However, I believe there are rituals performed during Good Friday which are quite physically energetic, including serial prostrations. Nothing like a 12 hour aerobic class on an empty stomach!Saturday is still a fasting day (certain people are absolved from fasting, including newly married couples?!), but activities in preparation for what is to come is now the order of the day. The climax is approaching.We arrived in Addis to start our travels on Thursday before Good Friday and the first thing of note was the absolute mass of live chickens for sale on the streets. Then there were many stalls with the same long curved sharp knifes being sold, with plenty of potential customers testing them out. Let me spell it out; abattoirs do not do the job here on this occasion, the individual purchaser(s)of the whole animal do/es and the throat is slit. Meat for everyday eating may be bought in smaller quantities from butcheries, but Easter is an orgy of meat eating and whole animals are bought by families/groups directly. A VSO colleague who admits to turning into quite a carnivore since being in Ethiopia, recounted how she and another VSO vol became part of a syndicate to buy an ox for Easter. Apparently it was split between about 8 people and the anatomy of the animal is worked out fairly in advance so everyone got an equal amount of meat from all parts of the body. Organs can be purchased separately. Apparently it is such a serious business that each person’s portion is noted and committed to writing. Apparently they secured 8 kilos of ox for 530 birr, less than £25. There were some graphic details of how resistant the animal was to having its throat cut, but I stopped the conversation as soon as possible. Where we stayed on Thursday night in Addisthere was a goat tied up in the courtyard, still alive when we left on Friday! Goat meat is popular here.So it all happens on Sunday. Once more Saturday night is spent in church, with an Easter Liturgy following after midnight and when the services have finished around 3am, with the first sound of the cock crowing, the fast is broken and the orgy of feasting begins. As dawn breaks, Doro Wat (spicy chicken stew served commonly at all festive occasions) is the culinary aperitif. This is then followed by every other type of meat in every possible quantity. Unlike Christmas which tends to be family focused, Easter is a time for inviting guests, and it is true that we had to refuse at least 3 invitations for Fasika feasting because we were travelling to Awassa to visit friends and colleagues.My first recollection of the dawning of Easter Sunday was hearing the beat and the rhythm of beautiful female singing in harmony which awakened me before first light. This was the start of the celebrations for which only one day is allocated as Monday is not an official holiday, but many people take the day off unofficially.We planned to hold a big lunch party for about 15-20 people that day and everyone prepared a dish. One VSO vol had been offered 5 kilos of meat from her employer and this was delivered on Saturday evening. Most of it went into the freezer!It is common nowadays to send text messages to friends at Easter and indeed during the day I received a lovely Easter wish.“Easter is a time to pray, to love, to care, to smile, to celebrate, to enjoy, and to thank GOD for everything he has done. Have a blessed Easter”.I did not see, because I did not look for, direct signs of the mass slaughter that would have taken place over the previous 2 days (meat here is cooked and eaten fresh and is not hung), but there were animal skins for sale everywhere during the following days.This is only a different take on what happens in our country of course, especially at Christmas time. It may be turkeys predominantly but the colossal amount of food that we consume at this time is undoubtedly on no lesser scale than in Ethiopia and there is absolutely no waste from any of the food prepared and eaten here. We certainly could not say the same. I’m pleased to say some of the local dogs are now looking a bit healthier! Yes, the hard facts of animal slaughter are much more ‘in your face’ here, whereas it goes on inside regulatory and sanitised abattoirs at home so we do not have to be exposed to the realities of killing animals for food.The main wedding season follow Easter, so Kate and Wills must have known this when they planned their date! On that subject…..Turning to recent historical events in England, I am delighted to say that I was able to join the British expatriate community at the British Embassy in Addis Ababa on that Friday after Easter to watch the Royal Wedding! I was lucky enough to have been in the capital for a committee meeting so it was a lucky coincidence. Via satellite, BBC World News transmitted it in its entirety and I think dedicated 5 hours of broadcasting to it. What a good thing there was no other important world news on that day! Despite the pending rainy season, it was a lovely day so we were able to sit outside on the grass of the Embassy as well as inside in front of the TVs. They gave us a great B-B-Q and the money we paid went to a charity supporting local streetchildren.Watching the event from a developing country allows one to see such a spectacle through different eyes. I am not renowned for being a Royalist, but it was the sheer spectacle which was so awesome seen from‘over here’. The organisation and planning, the precision, the splendour, extravagance, wealth, the quality and the beauty were elements that were noteworthy from this end, but which we can easily take for granted within the UK. The invited Ethiopians just seemed to say ‘amazing,’ and talking to Ethiopian colleagues back here in DD, several of them ‘watched the whole thing’ on their satellite TV’s. To see roads and pavements that are so smooth and perfect they look like plastic was a treat and the standard and quality of the photography was breathtaking to watch. That shot from the very rafters of the Abbey was iconic. These are the symbols, privileges and rewards of being a highly developed society and although they are not uniquely British, the British do it very well!